This means that 3 young Russian ladies who never made an Olympic, World, or European team (and only Ivanova ever competed in a GP event) beat out 2 future World bronze medallists, a future WC/OGM, and a second future WC. What ever happened to any of these ladies? I realize that due to the unusual amount of talent among the Russian ladies in the mid-90s there wasn't a lot of room at the top, but nevertheless.... I'll bet the Russian Federation would KILL to have those 3 around now, given their current depth problem beyond Irina and Elena S. [Jury still being out on whether or not Julia S. will ever regain her 99-00 form and on whether or not Vika is going to rebound from last season]

B) Like a lot of little girls, they lost thier triples as they grew. 98 Russian senior nats has Ivanova struggling with her jumps and not having much to offer without them, thus finishing 6th.

Edited to add; Don't forget, K Oblasova, who was the 2001 world junior champ, was ditched from team Russia in favor of an ill Irina, after her 16th placement at 04 Euros.

Oh, I know how it goes with making the junior/senior transition a lot of the time, especially with the ladies. I would argue, however, that 96 is especially notable given that 3 ladies who never went anywhere on the senior level won the medals whereas the next 4 in the standings collectively accomplished a LOT. This is why these results particularly jumped out at me.

surprise

That just goes to show that it's not how you start that matters, but rather how you finish. There have been alot of junior U.S. champions that never get anywhere. Many have called that event the "Kiss of Death".

Michelle Kwan was World Junior Champion in 1994, and Irina Slutskaya, in 1995, but the champs from 1996 through 2000 (Yelena Ivanova, Sydne Vogel, Yulia Soldatova, Daria Timoshenko, Kristina Oblasova) did not follow in their footsteps . The next four are still works in progress: Jenny Kirk, AP McDonough, Yukina Ota and Miki Ando.

Kwan and Slutskaya between them have 3 Olympic medals, 13 World medals and 6 World Championships. Add in Soldatova and you have a total of 14 World medals.

The Junior World Champion men would seem to have done better: Ilya Kulik, Alexei Yagudin, Evgeny Plushenko, Michael Weiss and Stefan Lindemann have all stood on the World podium. Others are still works in progress: Johnny Weir, Daisuke Takahashi, Ilya Klimkin, Alexander Shubin and Andre Griazev. Derrick Delmore may not have progressed much since his win, but he has accumulated two college degrees.

Kulik, Yagudin and Plushenko have among them 3 Olympic medals and 2 Olympic Championships; 12 World medals and 7 World Championships; add in Weiss and Lindemann and you have 15 World medals.